This
afternoon with the wind at their backs, some 2,000
Sudburians of all fitness levels took their place
on the starting line in front of Memorial Park downtown
for the 14th annual SudburyROCKS!! Race, Run, Walk
For The Health Of It.

For many years branded the
Race, Walk, Run For Diabetes, SudburyRocks!! has
been rebranded the Race, Walk, Run For The Health
Of It, and now benefits two charities.

Since growing from SudburyROCKS!!
running club in 2005, the annual race has become
the largest competitive running event in Northern
Ontario, attracting crowds of competitive athletes
and amateurs alike.

In its 14 years, SudburyROCKS!!
has raised more than $600,000 for various community
charities through pledges and donations. This year’s
recipients being the Northern Cancer Foundation
and Health Sciences North.

“We really wanted a
local charity where our money is staying absolutely
local,” said SudburyROCKS!! promotions director
Vince Perdue. “We have one of the best cancer
centres probably in Ontario, possibly in Canada,
and we’re helping to support that now.”

The locality of the beneficiary
appeared to bring quite a few new athletes to the
starting line this year. Among them, 92.7 ROCK radio
host Greg Williams, zipped head to toe in a Deadpool
costume -- which yes, he ran in.

“When I heard that
the beneficiary of Sudbury ROCKS this year was the
Northern Cancer Foundation and Health Sciences North,
I just said well, if there was ever a time to get
involved in it, this is the year,” said Williams.

Motivated by his mother’s
cancer diagnosis in September of last year, Williams
challenged the community to help him raise $1,000
in pledges, for which he agreed to run the race
in a tight, lycra costume. In addition to this,
Williams asked listeners to pledge $1 for every
15 seconds under 25 minutes that he was able to
beat the clock.

Finishing first in the Vale
Celebrity Challenge Run with an unofficial time
of 21:12, Williams was able to raise approximately
$1,250 in pledges.

Deadpool, or rather his secret
identity Wade Wilson, has cancer, said Williams.
But because of his regenerative superpowers, it's
there, but always healing. “(I thought) who
better to run in a race for the Northern Cancer
Foundation than the 'merc with the mouth' (a popular
nickname for Deadpool in the comic books and among
fans), who has cancer,” said Williams.

In addition to being a major
fundraiser for the community, SudburyROCKS!! is
also a Boston Marathon qualifier, an incredible
opportunity for Northern Ontario athletes to test
their skills against some of the best. Perdue said
that of the crowd of 2,000, approximately 40-50
athletes are running with the goal of qualifying
for the Boston Marathon, adding that he's pretty
confident many will reach that goal.

The many familiar
faces of the Sudbury Rocks!!! Marathon2019-05-13by
Randy Pascal

Familiar faces were evident
everywhere at the Sudbury Rocks!!! Marathon
on Sunday, not only in terms of the local
running elite, who continually grace the upper
echelon of the standings, but also throughout
the masses, the walkers and joggers who have
made this annual tradition part of their Mother's
Day festivities, each and every year.

A previous winner in both
the half-marathon and full marathon, Pascal
Renard opted to take a crack at the Continental
Insulation 10 km, making a seamless transition
to the shorter distance, winning in a time
of 35:48. “I went by feel today, I didn't
look at my watch,” noted the 43 year
old runner. “I hadn't been on the road
racing in a long time, so I was out enjoying
the scenery. It was a lovely sunny day.”

It was indeed.

And while Renard may not have
been cruising full torque, there is certainly
that element of competition that likely never
subsides for those at his level. “You're
still very focused on what you are doing,
even if you're not at the top of your game,”
he said. “I could still feel the stress
at the start line, which is a good sign, the
adrenaline coming in.”

This was the first time that
Renard competed at this distance, in this
event, allowing him to garner an appreciation
for a whole other layout of the race circuit.
“It's a challenging course with some
hills,” he said. “I went on some
roads that I have never explored in Sudbury,
lovely, quiet roads. On Notre Dame, on the
way back, it's all kind of down hill a little
bit, which is pleasant.”

After capturing the five km
race comfortably one year ago, Western Mustangs'
track and field veteran Brendan Costello (17:19)
was in for much more of a push this year,
as current Lo-Ellen Park Knights' member Nicholas
Lambert (17:27) managed to finish just eight
seconds back of the talented school alumnus.
“It was a lot closer than I expected,
I'm not going to lie,” said Costello.

“Nick made me earn that.
There was a little bit of strategy in play,
in that he took it out really fast to try
and get my legs out of me early, so I couldn't
kick him down in the last km. I think he kind
of suffered for it, but I was hurting too.”

Entering his fourth year of
post-secondary studies, Costello has lightened
the training load, just a little, as he plans
out another season of OUA competition. “I've
stopped doing cross country in the fall and
am just doing track,” he said. “I'm
focusing on just building a little more muscle
and getting my speed up, rather than trying
to put in junk miles.”

If all goes well, Costello
will take a shot at the prestigious sub 2:30
one kilometer run during the indoor season,
having just narrowly missed out on the goal
that equates, roughly, to a sub two-minute
800m race on the outdoor track.

A fellow competitor in the
OUA, Laurentian Voyageurs' Jared Milford was
more than a little pleased with a second place
finish in the 10 km event, overcoming some
health challenges in the weeks leading up
to the Rocks. “I ran just twice in the
past two weeks,” noted the 20 year-old
Bio-Chemistry major. “I'm happy. I didn't
expect to run a 37:00 – I expected something
in the 38's.”

“My plan was to cruise
the first couple of kms around 3:45s or 3:40s,
go up the hill (near Boréal) and then
take off and go faster, because after that,
it's all flat. I was close to executing the
game plan.”

All of which should lay the
groundwork for what Milford expects to be
a productive summer. “My plan is first
to get 100% healthy,” he said. “I've
been dealing with some knee and foot problems,
but after that, I'm going to start running
more, doing some long distance running, and
doing some track events as well.”

Fifty-six year old long-time
Sudburian Gilles Lafrance is like most of
us, not about to pose any kind of serious
threat to the podium placements of Renard,
Costello, Milford and their ilk. He is also
among the several dozen of race regulars,
the folks you will catch here in May, and
out at L.U. in September, site of the Ramsey
Lake Tour.

Unlike everyone else that
competed on Sunday, however, Lafrance can
lay claim to having represented Canada on
no less than separate occasions at the Paralympics:
1984 in New York, 1988 in Seoul and 1992 in
Barcelona (though it wasn't until the middle
of this troika that the term “Paralympics”
actually came in to accepted usage).

These days, Lafrance continues
to run, even if the decision on a race distance
are not confirmed until the very last minute,
at times. “I'm part of the run club
on Wednesday nights,” he said. “I
had planned to run the 5 kms, but I guess
I got inspired last Wednesday, because I had
a really good run. I got to the race Expo
yesterday and decided to sign up for the 10
kms.”

While this decision might
backfire on occasion, the strategy change
worked, this time around. “Actually,
I felt very relaxed,” said Lafrance,
who chugged home just over the one hour mark.
“It's such a nice day, I figured I would
just go out and have fun. I wasn't huffing
or puffing. I wasn't sore, or anything.”

Equally as pleased with the
state of affairs Sunday morning was Marina
McComber, a Community Health Nurse who has
gathered the forces within the Atikameksheng
Anishinaabe for the past 15 years, making
their presence felt at this event.

“We've been here, rain
or shine, snow, whatever,” said McComber,
overlooking a turnout that numbered more than
40 folks from the area. “We have really
good participation.” Like Lafrance,
there are no illusions of race victories within
this particular crowd. “I think it's
just good for the community, it gives you
a sense of community to be in this group as
you head out on the road,” acknowledged
30 year-old Liannissa Corbiere.

Even the ultra young have
a game plan in place. “We were doing
both walking and running,” noted eight
year-old Kierra Pheasant, who accompanied
her aunt, the chief, on the five kilometer
jaunt. “Every two poles, we would switch.
We would run for two poles and then the next
two poles, we would walk.”

And if that's what it takes
to make sure that Pheasant and company are
mainstays at the Sudbury Rocks!!! Marathon,
each and every year, then so be it.

Following are some of the
results, broken down by race distance, from
the 2019 edition of the Sudbury Rocks!!! Marathon:

To say that my training for the
2019 SudburyROCKS!!! Marathon was disappointing
would be an understatement. As I do every January,
I think about how my spring
Marathon is going to go. It usually involves something
along the lines of
perfect training and a perfect race. Of course it
rarely works out that way
for anyone and this year, in my case, was certainly
no exception.

Training in the first three weeks
of January went well enough, but at the end
of the month I contracted the flu, which kept me
from any worthwhile training
for the next 5 weeks. My only run in February was
the Hypothermic Half
Marathon, but was able to get through only half
of the race. It wasn't until
mid-March that I started any serious work in getting
ready for the SudburyROCKS
marathon.

In just my first long run of training
I started getting hip flexor pain in my
right leg, and the longer I ran the worse the pain
got. This pattern was
present in every single one of my runs for the next
4 weeks until I finally
made an appointment with my doctor. After experimenting
with various
stretches, pain relief medication and compression
wraps things finally started
improving, and with less than two weeks to the May
12 race I felt confident
enough that I could at least get to the finish line
of the marathon, but in
what condition!

A couple of days before the race
I remember telling someone my race plan: I was
going to just try to finish the race, and maybe
if I'm lucky I'd be able to run
with someone who just happens to be running my race
pace and then try to hang
on until the finish line. What I didn't know at
the time was just how lucky I
was to be on race day.

---

Just before the 1 kilometre mark
a runner came up onto my left and tells me:
"That's the fastest 22 kilometres I've ever
run!" He was referring to the
22-km marker (denoting the second loop of the course)
that shows up just before
the 1-km marker. I replied with "You should
be able to give Eliud Kipchoge a
run for his money then!" (For those of you
who don't know of him, Eliud
Kipchoge is the men's marathon world record holder.)
This quick exchange
started what would ultimately become an almost-3
hour conversation with Chris
Campbell, as we ran the streets of the SudburyROCKS!!!
Marathon together.

Chris lives in a town near Niagara
Falls and was looking for a spring Marathon
with cool temperatures, and chose the SudburyROCKS!!!
race.

Over the course of the run Chris
and I got a chance to get to know each other
and what our plans were for the marathon. I explained
that I was just getting
back into shape after a disappointing training schedule
and just hoping to
finish the race without any pain.

After having run a sub-par Boston
Marathon just 4 weeks earlier, Chris was
hoping for a personal best result this time around.
He was also looking to run
the marathon straight through without stopping (something
that he was not able
to accomplish in his five previous marathons). He
had a goal pace in mind,
which was 4 minutes, 37 seconds per kilometre (~
3:15 marathon), which suited
me just fine since that just happened to be my pace
up to that point. Battling
some pretty strong head winds on Lasalle Boulevard
(and two almost-wrong turns
on my part) we made it to 21.1 km dead on 3:15 marathon
pace.

Shortly after halfway, as Notre
Dame stretched out, we spotted another
marathoner in the distance. Chris and I kept our
sights on him for the next 5
to 6 kilometres until we caught up with him on Lasalle
Boulevard. He was Kenn
Schmitz from Hanmer and was running his very first
marathon. Our duo now
became a trio and for the next 5 kilometres or so
we all ran together, dealing
with the head winds yet again (gusts strong enough
that my hat flew right off
my head at one point).

Unfortunately Kenn had to drop back
near the 31 km point so it was down to a
duo once again.

Chris and I pressed on. About a
kilometre later I began to feel outer hip pain
in my right leg. My lack of training was beginning
to make its presence known,
and that got me worried. Even with perfect training
the last 10 kilometres of
a marathon are generally the most difficult, so
in that moment my worries were
compounded by the fact that my longest run without
any pain during training was
just over half the mileage that I was now just reaching.
I feared the final
stretch of this race was going to be more of a challenge
than in any other
marathon before.

However, it turned out that the
pain in my leg never got any worse, and thanks
to the wind not being of the head wind variety,
the last few kilometres of the
race weren't all that bad. At about 37 kilometres
Chris began to slow and I
eased ahead into a relative tail wind, past the
marshals on the course, past
the race walkers just finishing their own race,
and finally to the finish line,
with a time that was, very surprisingly, only about
three minutes off last
year's.

I give a lot of credit to my racing
partner that morning. I honestly do not
believe I could have accomplished what I did without
someone to run with.
Kudos to Chris for coming in third male, getting
his personal best in the
process.

Kenn would cross the finish line
next in 3 hours, 25 minutes in his first
marathon.

And a special congratulations to
Erin DeVeber who finished first overall in the
Marathon with a time that I believe is a new women's
course record.

---

I'd like to thank the countless
volunteers who made the SudburyROCKS!!!
Race-Run-Walk For the Health of it yet another success.
Once again we were
very lucky to get some good weather. It was also
nice to see some familiar
faces out marshaling the course yet again! These
are all fond reminders as to
why I choose to run this event every year.